


The Tactician Mage

by drunk_off_of_happiness



Category: Super Smash Brothers, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Male My Unit | Reflet | Robin, Midoriya Izuku Does Not Have One for All Quirk, Midoriya Izuku Has a Quirk, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:20:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23579821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drunk_off_of_happiness/pseuds/drunk_off_of_happiness
Summary: One day Izuku wakes up to a weird looking book on his bed stand. He doesn't know it then but this was the first sign of his quirk showing. It's weirder than any quirk he's ever seen but he's determined to use this power to become a hero.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So if it weren't clear from the tags this will be a Super Smash Bros crossover with My Hero Academia. Specifically Robin from SSBU as he's the player I main. Don't know exactly when the idea first popped up in my head but I'm glad I got around to writing it. This story should update semi-frequently, on my list of priorities it's 3rd of the fanfics I want to update with Catharsis and Exaltation being the top two. Usually I write on this as a way to destress from those two and as such won't have the same amount of thought as the two of them do.
> 
> If you do like this I'm writing a similar fanfic with Black Clover with Asta having Robin's powers from Smash Ultimate. It's called The Grandmaster and the concept will be the same but the power scaling will be adjusted to each anime. As you'll see here Izuku's powerset will be super close to everything Robin can do in SSBU with a few minor adjustments. Just click my profile and it should be there.
> 
> As a last note I have not played Fire Emblem: Awakening. I know that may be a turnoff for some people but I don't think that'll be a problem as Izuku's quirk will largely be based on what Robin can do in Ultimate.

Izuku opened his eyes and saw a strange looking book on his nightstand. Of course having just woken up he didn’t pay it too much attention and instead went back to sleep, it being the weekend and one of the few times he could actually sleep in. 

Eventually his body has had enough sleep and he’s slowly drifting back into consciousness when he spots the book again. This time he idly studies it, even though all he can see of it is the spine and a few inches of the cover. 

It’s bright green and he can see what looks like a crescent moon on the cover. 

Izuku racks his mind but he can’t think of what type of book it could be. He makes a motion to get up and inspect it when unexpectedly, the book flies into his hand. 

…..

Now, his first thought is that he still must be dreaming. It wouldn’t be the first time he dreamt of his quirk spontaneously manifesting but this feels entirely too real. There’s no doubt that he’s awake. 

He puts the book back down on his desk slowly and deliberately. And then with hope swelling in his chest he stretches out his arm and mentally wills the book to fly into his hand.

His eyes are stretched open wide as the book starts floating through the air until it nudges softly at his palm. He clasps it with shaky fingers and stares at the book in disbelief. 

And then it hits him. He did that! He has a quirk!

He leaps out of his bed and throws open his door. “MOM MY QUIRK CAME IN!” 

* * *

His mom is less than pleased by the rude awakening but as she watches Izuku play with his quirk a small smile appears on her face.

“I’ve got your quirk!” he cries happily. He makes the book revolve around him really fast and revels in the fact that he actually has a quirk. And his mother’s quirk nonetheless! Obviously it’s some spin-off of her attraction telekinesis, she could only attract small objects to her; his quirk was obviously different. 

His mom reaches out with his hand. “Can I see that book Izuku?” she asks. 

At his nod he feels the odd sensation of her telekinesis touching his own and he allows her to pull the book towards her despite still being in full control of it.

As soon as she touches it he remembers the oddity of it laying on his bed stand when he woke up. She runs her hand over the symbol on the front before trying to open it up. To both of their surprise the book doesn’t budge, not even a little bit.

“Where did you get this from?” she asks and he goes to take the book from her when it teleports to his hand. His mom jumps a bit and he stares at the book, finally taking a good look at it.

As he noticed before, it’s a bright shade of green. Actually, he notices that it’s only a couple of shades lighter than the color of his eyes. The symbol on the front wasn’t a crescent moon, although the core design of the symbol featured two of them. They were pressed together, with the smaller one hugging the inside of the larger, first moon that had three spikes on its backside. And to top it off there was a small little water drop beside it. 

It was a symbol that he had never seen before. He goes to open the book and he feels no resistance at all as it cracks open. The pages start turning rapidly without his input and he feels information being sent into his brain. 

It only lasts a couple of seconds but by the end of it he knows exactly what _Elwind_ is capable of. From sharp blades of wind that he could shoot at an enemy to a rapid flurry of small blades that would tear anybody in front of him into pieces. That last one is only capable if he used the Bronze sword to start it.

Wait a minute? Sword? 

As soon as he thinks about it he unconsciously reaches out his hand and a small sword appears in his hand and as soon as it makes contact with him the information dump happens again except this time about the sword in his hand, the Bronze sword. 

Distantly, he’s aware of his mom in the background trying to get his attention but the information dump is distracting and he can’t respond as knowledge on how to use the Bronze sword appears in his mind. He can’t tell how long it takes for the information to process but he stops struggling and lets the information pass freely.

When he comes out of it he tells his mom to not worry, it’s just his quirk before dropping back into a trance as the Bronze sword in his hand becomes the Levin sword, and he receives basically the same exact info dump except with the Levin sword in place of the Bronze sword. 

He comes to to his mom staring at him and he sheepishly smiles, “I think there might be a little more to my quirk than just telekinesis.”

In the end his mom lets him stay home from school that day and he eagerly spends the rest of his day trying to figure out his quirk works. 

It’s difficult because he can’t really test either _Elwind_ or his swords without damaging something inside their apartment. It’s frustrating but what little he’s able to test out makes him eager to really test his abilities. 

There’s a beach that nobody goes to because it was used as a dumping site for scrap metal. He plans on going there tonight and doing some more testing later. 

One thing quickly becomes apparent though, so far everything but the Bronze sword has a set number of uses. He scared himself to death when _Elwind_ was out of charge and was forcibly ejected from his hand. He thought he had somehow broken it but was thankful when it reappeared shortly. 

After that he tests _Elwind_ by aiming it straight up outside of his window. He can use ten wind blades before its charge is spent and it takes exactly four seconds for it to reappear. The Levin sword in comparison can be used eight times before it breaks and it takes six seconds for it to respawn. 

A couple of seconds doesn’t seem like much but he’s sure in actual combat that every second will count. It sucks that he can’t use his quirk freely but just by testing this much he knows that his quirk is vastly different than any type of quirk he’s seen before. And he has seen and analyzed a lot of different quirks. 

The general consensus was that quirks were like another set of muscles. Capable of being trained to be stronger but also having a hard limit on how much they can be used. There was always some type of drawback, usually in the case of physical or mental fatigue. 

As far as Izuku is concerned, his quirk can be used indefinitely without any problem. As long as he’s conscious and able to move he can leverage the fullpower of his quirk without any drawbacks. In a way the durability of his items were his greatest weakness but also his greatest strength. It made him vulnerable but capable of outlasting anybody.

In fact he gets another grimoire(?) when testing what happens if he initiates the beginning stages of the _Elwind_ flurry rush with _Elwind_ out of charge. A upward and downward slash later and he feels his quirk take over his body as it goes through the motions to produce an explosion from _Arcfire._

This time he knows what to expect from the information dump and he rides it all the way through until he’s staring at the _Arcfire_ grimoire. 

“Grimoire.” He tests the word aloud and finds it lacking despite it technically being the word for the magic book in his hands. It takes a little while but he ends up settling on the word ‘tome’. It’s not as accurate as grimoire but makes sense considering how much weight _Elwind_ and _Arcfire_ have after their charges are spent. 

He’s a little disappointed by _Arcfire_ if he was being honest. While the explosion was certainly a better go to instead of the lethal flurry rush he couldn’t find a good use for the other ability of _Arcfire_. What use was a column of fire that went out almost instantly?

Izuku shook his head as he realized what he was thinking. Not even a full day of having his quirk and he was wanting more. He would’ve been grateful if all he had gotten was _Arcfire_. He would find a good use for it eventually. He first tests _Arcfire’s_ explosion durability and finds that he can use it twelve times before the tomes run out.

The other ability was tricky to test at first but easy enough once he reviewed the information in his mind and realized that if _Arcfire_ didn’t hit anything the column of fire wouldn’t appear. He tested it on his fire escape and wrote down that it only took six uses before the tome ran out. It travelled further than he expected but it vanished into nothingness once it didn’t meet any resistance.

He frowned at that but didn’t question it. The durability tactic seemed to limit his more useful abilities but the mini explosion was way more useful than the column of fire in his opinion. Maybe there was a better use for it than he was thinking for? 

After he records the time it takes for _Arcfire_ to respawn he compares the respawn times of the two tomes he has and the Levin sword. 

_Elwind_ \- 4 seconds

 _Arcfire_ \- 10 seconds

Levin sword - 6 seconds. 

If he was going by the theory that the more useful the ability the longer the cooldown then it meant that he was missing something about _Arcfire_. He thought it over for a few minutes but couldn’t find any obvious usage of _Arcfire_ that he was missing. The problem nagged at him— it had only six uses and the longest respawn time — but he put it out of his head for now. 

He briefly wondered if he’d get any more tomes but shied away from that type of thinking. It would be nice but what he had right now was enough. He could become a hero with this power. There was no point in hoping for a new tome when he didn’t even know how _Elwind_ appeared on his desk. 

He went through the information in his mind but couldn’t see anything that led into a new ability like how _Elwind_ led into the Bronze and Levin swords or how the absence of _Elwind_ made _Arcfire_ appear. 

Now the that tomes were taken care of he switched his focus to the sword techniques that were given to him. If he thought the respawn time on his tomes were kind of weird it had nothing on the data the Levin and Bronze words had given him. 

He was only given the knowledge on how to perform ten specific sword maneuvers. Six of them were moves he could only perform on the ground and that excluded the duplicate techniques that only switched the direction he was swinging the sword in. 

The rest of the four movements were performed in the air and those were the ones that caught Izuku’s attention. There was this one move that had him twist his body and bring his sword above him in a sweeping arc before that would completely protect him from someone attacking him from above. 

The move finished with him completing the twist and bringing his body roughly in the same position it was before he started the move. Most of the moves were simple though, with a clear distinction between all three sets of moves they all followed the same attack direction. Up, down, left, and right. 

The first set only used the Bronze sword for attacking and they were all moves that hit fast but not hard. Just picturing the move in his mind made him want to try out and since it didn’t use the Levin sword he deemed it safe. 

It was only a matter of will to switch out the Levin sword for the Bronze sword and he let the data in his mind guide him as he quickly swiped at the ground in front of him. If he angled the sword right he could knock a villain right off their feet. 

The data gave him every bit of knowledge required to execute the move. The only thing holding him back was his physical ability. The data even included the footwork of the move! The other two moves of the first set was a simple side swipe and a move that was parallel to his up air move. 

The rest of the two sets used the Levin sword if able and if not they defaulted to the Bronze sword. The ground side attack only had him charge the Levin sword behind his back and swing it forward. Slow, but powerful. It kind of reminded him of a fancy way of taking a sword out of its sheath with the way his arms were positioned. 

The up smash? His eyes lit up as the thought went through his head. It was the perfect terminology to describe his grounded Levin sword attacks and it was an excellent way to pay homage to All Might. Yeah, his up smash had him toss his sword in the air with a mixture of telekinesis and physical movement. 

As with all the sword maneuvers, except for his aerials, he was able to charge it to add more power to it. He liked the move but he couldn’t see where he would need to strike at someone who was directly above him. 

The down smash was really interesting as it had him slam the Levin sword onto the ground in front of him. The best thing about it was that it had a small area of effect where the lightning would disperse through the ground and shock anyone that was near him. 

The effect wasn’t big, maybe around half a foot but it would be useful if he needed to get some breathing room.

The rest of the aerials beside his up air didn’t seem like anything special. In fact he was worried if he could even make use of them as he wasn’t sure he could jump high enough to space them correctly. Some of that could be remedied by training his ability to jump but even then he didn’t think it would help all that much.

He wrote the official facts in his notebook and put all his ramblings and thoughts into another one. He glanced at the clock and was excited to see that it was finally late enough for him to go test his quirk. Though he did have to bring his backpack to hide the Levin sword as it was way too conspicuous. 

He only had to carry one of his tomes because they automatically switched out whenever he had to use a different one. They were presumably stored in some type of pocket dimension? Seemed like a little too much just for convenience’s sake but he was quickly learning that his quirk was unlike others’.

Case in point: the sudden information dump he got when trying to pull himself up onto the top of one of the garbage stacks. Like why did he need a step by step instruction on how to normally get up on a ledge? The sword poke and the roll he could kind of understand but the one that had him just stand there afterwards made no sense at all. 

Once on the stack he took a look at the ground. If this failed at least he would fall on soft sand, but he honestly expected this to work. He could see each and every step required to do the move, could feel which muscles were needed at each part. 

He held the Levin sword so it was positioned vertically just behind his left shoulder and jumped off the stack, first bringing the sword up in a trailing arc above him and then spinning his body back so that it faced forward again. 

The second he landed he got hit with two different information dumps. They were both extremely simple but completely changed the way he saw his quirk. He didn’t know what was more astounding, the fact that he could use his telekinesis as a stepping stone to jump in mid-air or the fact that he could break physics and consciously control his fall speed. 

He jumped and then used his double jump to neatly land on the garbage stack he was just on. Another wave of excitement washed over him. He didn’t know how or why but he could jump way higher than usual. He hadn’t noticed earlier but his first jump had brought him way higher than it should’ve.

He inspected his legs but couldn’t see any noticeable difference. Was it just another way of his telekinesis supporting himself? There was no way of telling but Izuku made sure to write it down in his notebook. He’d do it right now, but it was too dark for him to see what he was writing. 

And because the info dump had interrupted him he did another up-air just to appreciate the fact that he could move his body like that. It was one of his most dexterous moves and helped cement the fact that his quirk was actually real.

Even though his magic sword and books were proof enough the fact that he could move his body like that erased all lingering doubt. He had dreamt of gaining a quirk for so long and now that it was happening it felt too good to be true. 

He parsed through the information in his mind. He didn’t want to test out all of his moves, _Elwind’s_ flurry rush would be too noisy to test on the metal here and most of the Bronze sword moves were simple and something he could have mimicked without the info his quirk had given him. 

Hmmn, he eyed one of the taller stacks of metal around and decided to test out the one move he had been super curious about. 

He jumped and shouted, “Elwind!” Two powerful gusts of wind carried him to the stack and though he had been mocking the ledge info dump just now he was grateful for it as he approached the metal stack at a faster speed than he was comfortable with. 

His quirk guided his hands once he was in range and a few seconds later he was proudly standing at the top of it. 

He jumped down and headed towards the ocean. Once there he used _Arcfire_ once more and stared at the pillar of fire that grew. It wasn’t useless but he didn’t think he would ever hit anybody with it unless they were directly in front of him and he had better options to use if that happened. 

It would be nice if he had better long range options other than the blades of wind that _Elwind_ produced. He hadn’t tested it himself yet but he knew that other than the Levin sword, _Elwind_ was his most lethal tool his quirk had given him. The flurry rush would slice and dice any regular human into pieces and the blades of wind that he could send out were just as sharp. 

No sooner than he had completed the thought did a new tome appear in his hand. Izuku’s eyes shot wide open as he processed the information. He stared at the bright yellow tome that he was holding. Like all his other tomes it was covered in runes that he couldn’t understand and it had a lightning bolt on its front cover. 

_Thunder._ He knew that it would produce a small bolt of lightning in front of him. It had a decent range, nothing special. No, the most surprising thing was that the tome charged and the next stage of _Thunder_ , was _Elthunder._ And then after that was _Arcthunder_ and it finished with _Thoron_. 

He instantly noticed the naming similarities between his _Thunder_ tomes and _Elwind_ and _Arcfire_. 4 stages, the basic element being used for the first stage, the prefix _El-_ being used for the second stage, _Arc-_ being the prefix for the third stage, and the 4th stage having a unique name. 

But none of it made any sense, why couldn’t he charge _Elwind_ and _Arcfire_ like he did with _Thunder_? Why did his quirk allow him access to specifically _Elwind_ and _Arcfire_ and not the other stages? And if all his tomes scaled in power like how _Thunder_ did why was _Arcfire_ so weak in comparison? It was the third stage of the fire tome and it was inflexible and weak. Previously he had thought that _Elwind_ was just a fancy name for a wind attack and _Arcfire_ being a literal arc of fire but the _Thunder_ tome had set a precedent. 

And why wasn’t there a thunder variant of the two slash hit combo with the Bronze sword? His mind raced as he found more and more inconsistencies with his quirk. He brought out his phone and let his mind race, jotting down the ideas that took more time to think through than he was willing to spend on right now. 

Despite the confusion he badly wanted to test out his _Thunder tome._ He waded back into the metal stacks so he wouldn’t stand out as much and tested his new tomes out. He stuck to the first two stages and even then it was brief, as cool as _Thunder_ and _Elthunder_ were he knew that the move he really wanted to try out was _Thoron._

 _Thoron_ was ridiculously powerful and this brief time trying out _Thunder_ and _Elthunder_ was just him trying to build up the courage to go through with it. Once charged he had to use it eventually, it would stay charged and he wouldn’t be able to use the lower forms of the thunder tome until he let _Thoron_ loose.

He bit his lower lip in deliberation before letting the next charge slip past _Elthunder_ and _Arcthunder_ into _Thoron._ Once done he blinked his eyes in confusion. Was… was he glowing? He looked down and saw that yes, not only was he glowing but the light was also flashing in and out, like a lightbulb about to go out.

He looked at the _Thoron_ tome and saw that it was covered in lightning, as if the power contained in the tome was overflowing. If anything this made him even more nervous but he knew he had to do it now, he couldn’t come home in this state. 

He glanced out at the ocean, no ships or boats as far as he could see. He judged that _Thoron_ wouldn’t go so far as to hit anything he couldn’t see. He checked that he had everything that he had brought with him. After pulling a stunt like this he had to leave immediately after.

He stood on the beach, a couple of feet away from the water. Aware that he was glowing like a beacon in the night he forced himself to go through with it. 

He spun on his heel and threw his sword above him, catching it with his telekinesis. “Thoron!” From his outstretched hand a beam of lightning quickly burst forth and raced through the air. It was one thing to know what _Thoron_ did but experiencing it was an entire different matter. 

It was so loud and bright that he wanted to close his eyes and cover his ears but he did neither of the two things, drinking in the sight of his beam of lightning. 

Above him the Levin sword spun furiously as if it was knocked back from the force of the move. The beam continued to snake out before it finally ceased and afterwards he was treated with the sight of seeing _Thoron_ race out over the sea before it abruptly faded, like it had never been there in the first place.

As soon as it was gone he took off running, unable to stop the wide grin on his face. Despite the confusing aspects of his quirk all of this was so exciting. Testing his own quirk had been so much more fun than he had ever imagined.

When he got back home and slipped into his bed it took him hours before he could fall asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really excited at how this chapter went. Hardest part of starting a story is writing the first chapter. Once I have that building towards the next chapter is way easier. Unlike with Exaltation I don't have any chapters written up for this but the next chapter should come within a month I feel like. 
> 
> Please leave kudos and a comment if you can.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izuku takes the entrance exam and comes out of it with two new friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm satisfied with how the combat went in this story, but the end of the chapter was weak and honestly I didn't know how or have the will to change it. This is my lazy fanfic, the one I go to when I'm tired of writing on Catharsis and Exaltation, so I think I'm gonna let it slide. I might go in later and edit things to my liking but for now it stays. 
> 
> Also I've kept Izuku's abilities pretty close to everything Robin can do in SSBU. I think the most obvious thing I've changed so far is that Izuku doesn't fall into a helpless state after using Elwind, and can also use Elwind grounded instead of just as a recovery move. I hope his quirk is understandable to those who haven't played the game or any of the game in the Smash Bros. series. I've been thinking about this fanfic for a long time and been playing Smash Bros ever since it came out on the 64 but if anyone has any questions about the specifics about his quirk I'll answer them! If you've played the game you know there's still some core mechanics of the game that haven't been introduced that I won't spoil but I can clear up any uncertainties.

It’s two minutes into the 15-minute exam when Izuku realizes that running around and hoping to run into a robot is futile. He doesn’t do well with time limits — his mind fixates upon it until it’s like a damocles sword that he can’t ignore — but he forces himself to stop and think because this course of action is getting him nowhere.

There’s been a couple of robots he would’ve been able to snipe with  _ Thoron  _ but the problem with that is that  _ Thoron  _ is too powerful. It won’t stop once it hits a robot, it’ll go through it and the building behind it and keep going until it runs out of power. 

He hesitates for a split second before jumping at the highest building in his vicinity. Launching himself into the air like this is terrifying every time despite the fact that Izuku doesn’t take fall damage ever since his quirk had come in.

He had tested the ability himself, jumping from progressively higher heights until eventually he stopped when it became apparent that no matter how he fell or what height he fell from he wouldn’t get anything worse than a scuffle. 

It takes both of his jumps and two wind gusts from Elwind before he gets high enough to reach the ledge and once there he looks out at the fake city U.A. had made just for this exam. Cementoss’s quirk was truly incredible and seeing it first hand was staggering.

It’s definitely too big of a place for the amount of students he had seen before the exam had started. In fact he bets that U.A. could’ve fit all of the students that applied for the Hero course in two or three of these alone. Why did they go to such extremes and only send about fifty people into each city?

All of this was running in the back of his mind while he searched for a place that didn’t seem to have that many other people. He didn’t know how U.A programmed their robots but it didn’t seem too unreasonable to believe that they targeted students based on proximity and maybe some type of motion or sound detection.

If he went somewhere without a lot of students and made a bunch of noise he’d bet he’d get some robots all on his own to destroy. In fact since his mobility was way better than the average person’s he’d be able to quickly find an unoccupied space.

As long as he kept in mind to not go too far, despite the size of this place there had to be a limit on how many robots there were and the majority of them were bound to be near the entrance or within a 15-minute running distance.

Izuku started hopping buildings, using a gust of  _ Elwind _ when his two jumps weren’t sufficient enough. Thanks to his quirk all of his landings were perfect even when he messed up the execution; he had practiced the moves his quirk had given him until his quirk only overrode his body when he made a mistake.

Quickly enough he landed in a plaza of sorts and he charged his lightning tome until it was on  _ Arcthunder. _ While confident in his abilities Izuku was aware that he wasn’t invincible.  _ Arcfire _ was a great keep away tool and served as a last line of defense. Any robot that caught him defenseless would get trapped in a X-shaped electrical storm before being furiously launched. 

It was a slow projectile, actually his slowest, but it accelerated rapidly making it best used for stationary targets or any target that was directly in front of him. 

He brandished his Levin sword before sending out some wind scythes to break some glass windows. He was thirty seconds into this when the first robot appeared. It was a one pointer and Izuku dodged the opening side swipe by jumping back a couple spaces.

The one pointer was intimidatingly tall and for arms it had machine guns strapped underneath a metal plate that also served as shields. For its legs it had a wheel, and Izuku instantly filed that information down in his brain. A single wheel could only move in a straight line which would limit its mobility and balance.

It was colored a dark green and its eyes glowed a deep red as it loomed over him, its upper body was bigger than its lower body and was connected by a somewhat thick metal cord.

Izuku used the last two wind blades left in  _ Elwind _ to blind the bot’s eyes and rushed in with his Levin sword parallel to the ground. He grabbed the hilt with his left hand, laid his right so his palm was softly pressing into the hilt and pushed it with all his might as he aimed for the obvious weakness of the one pointer. 

He felt more resistance than he expected when he cut through the one pointer’s midsection but the Levin sword was sharp and with the constant respawns it never dulled so Izuku easily cut through it with the amount of force he put into the blow.

After he finished the swing he felt  _ Elwind _ spring out of his hand. He did a short hop and grabbed it with an outstretched arm without a second thought, long used to his tomes expelling. He turned around and sunk his Levin sword into the zero pointer’s head because it was the smart thing to do. 

_ That makes one point and six uses left of my Levin sword.  _ The bots after that started to show and the next time Izuku found some he was confronted with two one pointers. He threw his  _ Elwind _ tome at one of them, aiming for its tiny head and not being surprised when it missed and hit its arm.

As soon as he threw the tome  _ Elwind  _ manifested back in his hand with a brief flash of green light, its respawn time having been over. He used the same strategy he used on the first 1-pointer and blinded it with  _ Elwind _ ’s blades while he rushed over and sliced through it. 

He knew that his discarded tomes produced more knockback than it felt like it should but even that wasn’t enough for it to knock over a metal robot.

So when he heard the tell tale sign of a machine gun about to fire he took cover behind the body of the robot he had just destroyed, wondering what type of bullets were loaded as they ricocheted and pinged off of the robot’s remains.

Once he heard the bullets stop firing he jumped twice out of his hiding spot, hovering briefly over the other one pointer before falling as fast as he could while swinging the sword down once he was close enough. This move was not as practiced as the others and he felt his quirk move his legs higher in the air before he swung his sword and it didn’t let go of his legs until he landed.

He spun around and made sure that both bots were down for the count.  _ 3 points and 4 uses left.  _ He ran off again and this time found a 2-pointer and a 3-pointer together. At the sight of it he felt his heartbeat pick up a little. A dangerous combination considering that he didn’t know what they were capable of nor their weak spots. 

The 2-pointer took the form of a scorpion although personally, Izuku thought it looked more like a snake. It had the scorpion’s four limbs and tail and he watched it move its tail lazily. It was about the same size as the 1-pointer but a bit bigger. Nothing he was particularly worried about as long as he either destroyed it in one hit or took out its tail. It didn’t seem to have any projectiles like the 1-pointer but it’s close combat capabilities were probably higher. 

To his dismay the three pointer was a juggernaut. It had two thick blocky hands that were connected by slightly smaller blocks of metal. On top of its shoulders sat two thick hexagons with small holes in them that Izuku knew contained missiles, which frankly concerned him. In what situations were the missiles needed for? It looked bigger than both the 1-pointer and 2-pointer combined!

One look at it and Izuku wanted to charge  _ Arcthunder  _ into  _ Thoron  _ but even against the 3-pointer Izuku knew it would be overkill.

Not wanting to waste any more time Izuku uses his surprise advantage to take out the 2-pointer so he could focus all his attention on the 3-pointer. He jumps off the roof and aims the rest of  _ Elwind _ , 8 blades if his count was right, at the 2-pointer below him. 

It was hard to aim in mid-air so Izuku focused all of his attention on aiming while he let his quirk takeover the landing on the ground. Afterwards he was gratified to see that his aim had been mostly spot on; he had prioritized the tail and its head and it had been the correct decision. It was mostly intact but it was clear that the robot was down for the count.

He turns and faces the real threat, the 3-pointer. To start off he lets loose the  _ Arcthunder _ he had been saving and he sees it rapidly accelerate towards the robot. 

Thankfully the bot didn’t launch any missiles or any type of projectile that would cancel  _ Arcthunder  _ out and as soon as it hit he jumped. He didn’t expect  _ Arcthunder _ to defeat the 3-pointer but it does even less damage than Izuku expected.

Maybe it was insulated better than he had expected? He lands on the 3-pointer and takes out one of the missile launchers with a swipe of his sword and destroys the other one with two well placed  _ Arcfires.  _ Even with all of this the robot is still functional and it tries to swipe at him with its hands.

He dodges it by jumping off of the robot and landing a distance aways, in front of it. Before it could react he rushes it again and this time he jumps slightly, raises the Levin sword above and behind him and then brings it down and up so the sword cuts through the face of the 3-pointer.

It was one of the aerial moves his quirk had granted him, specifically his forward aerial though lately he’s been shortening it to f-air or fair since he was tired of writing it out in his quirk notebook. 

The amount of force and noise the impact makes surprises him but he moves through it and uses his double jump the second his f-air was done. 

Almost immediately he breaks the momentum of his jump by swinging his sword downwards into the 3-pointer’s unprotected back. His feet land on it a second later and he wastes no time in sliding off of its back and in the brief moment before his feet hit the ground he thrust the Levin sword backwards into the robot, hopefully finishing it off. 

A fair, dair, and bair all in rapid succession. Izuku had questioned the usefulness of the moves his quirk had granted him before (they were hardly ideal for fighting against another person with a sword) but they had worked perfectly in this situation. 

The Levin sword springs out of his hand, the last three swings having been the last of its eight uses. He catches it and then turns around to inspect the 3-pointer. He’s not too sure but those three slices should have almost sliced it in half from the way he positioned the blows. 

Sure enough when he inspects the robot he sees that he basically cut through the entire upper half of the robot. None of the aerials connected but it was a close thing with inches of metal separating each blow. The bottom half was untouched and keeping the whole thing together but the top was just a ruined mass of metal and wire. 

It rankles at him but he takes the time to inspect both robots. Though he defeated both of them he knows nothing about how they work and just by taking the time to search their remains he finds the off switch for 2-pointer and learns where to best strike the 3-pointer. 

He takes stock of the resources he has left after the Levin sword flashes back into his hand. 4 uses of a standard  _ Arcfire _ , a completely fresh  _ Elwind _ tome, and about 3 uses of  _ Arcthunder  _ left. The lightning tome expired faster if he used the stronger spells and if he mixed the spells he used he couldn’t accurately count down to when it lost all remaining charges. 

He was working on a durability point system for it, 20 charges being the max since that was the amount of times he could use  _ Thunder  _ before it ran out, but since he didn’t expect to need to use anything other than  _ Arcthunder _ today he only had to keep track of how many times he could use it, which was 4 times.

But something about how it worked was wonky, if he used  _ Thunder _ 19 times on the 20th charge he could still use  _ Elthunder _ ,  _ Arcthunder _ , and  _ Thoron _ despite their cost consuming more than 1 charge. 

He grinned, so far this was going well. He had lost track of how many points he had (too many numbers in his head that he had to be aware of) but now that he knew what to expect from each robot he knew that he could be a little less cautious in engaging the villain robots. As long as he was aware of the remaining uses of each of his tomes and the Levin sword, this was doable.

He ran off once more and he engaged any robot he saw almost immediately, trusting in his abilities to see him to success. Twice more he had to stop and take to the rooftops to observe his surroundings before descending back into the fray.

It’s near the end of the exam when the remaining robots suddenly stop and Izuku sees the lights within their eyes switch from red to blue. Immediately the 3-pointers point their missile launchers towards the sky and start shooting whatever projectile U.A. has stored in them. 

At this point he had merged back into the area where the majority of the students were and it quickly became apparent what was in the missile launchers. Nets, and a fuck ton of them. 

Izuku had been lucky enough to not get hit in the first wave but he saw that many of the other examinees weren’t so lucky. They went down and the 2-pointers blocked any attempts at escaping.

The second wave was launched and Izuku threw his Levin sword straight up in the air and followed it with a maximum height jump. With his sword blocking any nets flying towards him it was only a matter of jumping again before he was free of any robots trying to attack him. 

Not that they didn’t try though. The 1-pointers shot their guns at him if he broke cover for long enough and the 2-pointers routinely scanned their surroundings. 

He recalled the Levin sword back to his hand and did some quick thinking. U.A. didn’t say anything about this being part of the exam but that was most likely the entire point. This was a test to see how they reacted to unexpected situations or something similar. 

The students with quirks capable of getting themselves out of the nets were fighting back but he could see that the sudden switch had caught a lot of the students off guard. Previously they had been confident in their abilities and their safety, but those two things had been shaken. 

He was about to go down and help the other students fight when he sees one of the people caught by the nets floating?? He squints and sure enough he sees a girl floating in mid-air, struggling to get free of the net that she was caught in. 

He runs along the top of the building he’s on until he's in range and then jumps, grabbing the net on his way down and then jumping again onto the rooftop of the building that was across the street. 

Once she realizes what happened she cancels her quirk and with a quick, careful swipe of the Levin sword the brown haired girl is free of the net. 

“Ahhh thank you so much! Once I got caught by the net I accidentally used my quirk on myself and then I was knocked into the sky and couldn’t cancel my quirk!”

Up close he sees that the girl was short and that she had brown eyes. Her hair was also short with the exception of two long strands that rested on both sides of her face. Her hair curled inwards and he didn’t know if that was on purpose but it served to frame her face.

“It’s no problem! I’m glad I could help!” he says in return and then immediately ducks as a round of bullets fly over their heads. Together the two of them scramble for cover.

“So you’ve any idea what’s going on?” the girl asks.

He shrugs his shoulders but the motion was stifled due to the fact that he was lying on his back. “I might be wrong but I’m pretty sure we have to rescue everyone that’s trapped by the robots. I don’t know if the exam is technically over or not but the villain bots are stopping anyone from escaping.”

The girl slams her fist into her outstretched palm. “Of course! It makes sense that U.A. would do something like this.”

She positions herself into a crouch and looks over the edge of the building. “There’s no time to waste. You ready?” she smiles and holds out her hand.

“Yeah!” he smiles back and allows her to help him off of the ground. Together, the two of them jump off the building and back into the fray.

* * *

The first person they rescue is a guy with dark blue hair with what looks like pieces of metal sticking out of his legs.

The girl takes out the robots while Izuku cuts the net that the boy is trapped in. From what he’s seen so far the net is made out of some special material but it falls apart easily enough when set up against the Levin sword.

The blue haired boy stands up and straightens his glasses. He fixes Izuku with a serious expression and Izuku can’t help but notice how much taller the other boy is. His serious demeanor is suddenly broken by a smile and a deep bow. 

“Thank you for your assistance!” he says resolutely. Izuku flinches as the tell-tale sound of metal slamming into the ground comes from behind him and the girl joins the two of them. 

“I’ll admit, it’s a bit galling to be rescued but I can’t say that I didn’t need any help. Especially with the villain bots stopping any attempts of escape.”

Izuku waves him off. “It was no problem! Do you wanna help us rescue the rest of the students? We’re pretty sure that’s the point of this part of the exam.”

It doesn’t take long for the boy to agree and the three of them take off as a team. 

There was no obvious synergy between their quirks but the three of them quickly settled into a pattern with the blue haired boy taking care of the 1-pointers, Izuku the 2-pointers, and the girl taking care of the 3-pointers. 

To his frustration he has to break out his other spells from the  _ Thunder _ tome instead of just using  _ Arcthunder _ .  _ Elthunder _ was too useful as a zoning tool for him not to use it and  _ Arcthunder _ was dangerous with allies.

Its rapid acceleration was nothing to scoff at and could even catch the speedster boy off guard if the boy wasn’t paying attention. As predicted he quickly lost track of the remaining charges he had left with the  _ Thunder  _ tome and he had to pray that when the tome ejected it didn’t do so at a bad time. 

The next student they rescued didn’t even speak to them, as soon as they were free of the net they launched themselves at the closest robot and the three of them moved on. 

They were nearing the next student trapped by the robots when the  _ Thunder  _ tome finally gave out and ejected from his hand. There was no time to catch it so he let it hit the ground where it disappeared with a small puff of smoke. 

He finished off the 2-pointer with a stream of wind blades as he started down the 10 second countdown in his hand. He didn’t bother counting down the time until  _ Elwind  _ respawned because 4 seconds went by in a blink of an eye but it explained why he didn’t see the signs earlier. 

He was on the count of 3 when his  _ Thunder  _ tome suddenly respawned in his hand with a yellow flash. He didn’t outwardly, or even inwardly, react but he did make sure to pay extra attention to the respawn times of all of his tools after it. 

The next student was rescued and Izuku concluded for sure that for some reason, his respawn times were getting shorter. His countdowns were off, sometimes wildly so. His tomes came back into his hand usually a second or two earlier with the Levin sword materializing into his hand an entire 3 seconds earlier once!

It’s hard to contain his joy but he’s been trying to shorten the timers on his implements ever since he’s gotten his quirk. It was his most obvious weakness and nothing he’s done so far hasn’t even taken a second off of it. 

He jumps over a jab from the tail of the last scorpion 2-pointer and destroys it with a falling dair right in the centerpiece of its body. The Levin sword springs out of his hand once more and this time he made no attempt to catch it. 

The boy and girl he was teaming up with were finishing the last of the 1 and 3-pointers on the street they were on and he could see all the students that they freed move on in search of other robots to destroy. 

Izuku used this moment to catch his breath. The exam should’ve been over and at this point he didn’t know what they were waiting for. The sheer amount of robot parts lying around them was insane and it was hard to imagine U.A. spending all of this money just for this exam. 

The three of them had just regrouped when Present Mic’s voice came over the speakers. “Alright! The last student has been rescued. The exam is over!”

“Oh my god I feel like I’m going to throw up,” said the girl. Izuku gingerly lowered himself onto the ground, his legs sore from all of the running he just did. He burned through the rest of his  _ Thunder _ tome, setting it so that it was at full charge and did the same for his other tomes. He saw the other boy sit down as well after a moment's hesitation. 

They were all smiling, all abuzz with the same type of energy and excitement. During the fight Izuku had forgotten about his nervousness and had been having fun. 

Now that he had time to think he recognized exactly why the boy’s quirk was so familiar. “Hey, by any chance are you related to the pro hero Ingenium?”

The boy looked startled but bobbed his head. “Yeah, actually. He’s my older brother, how did you know?”

“Woahhh, that’s so cool! Your quirk is very similar to his although the fact that it manifested in your calves threw me off at first.” 

Ingenium was the leader of a huge hero agency called Idaten which was famous for its teamwork and their minimal casualty capture rate. Ingenium was said to have a knack for strategy and they often took in heroes and sidekicks whose quirks didn’t have an immediate and obvious use. 

“Okay! I think I’m good now,” said the girl. “I don’t think I’m going to throw up anymore.” She sat up off of the floor and introduced herself. “My name’s Uraraka Ochako! It’s nice to meet you two!”

“It’s nice to meet you as well. I’m Iida Tenya, thanks again for rescuing me.”

The two of them looked over at Izuku and he started introducing himself. “I’m Midoriya Izuku, and seriously it was no problem! We all made a really good team, it was nice working with you two.”

They all got up and started walking towards the exit when Recovery Girl came over and started healing anybody that needed it. He managed to question them about their quirks, their parents' quirks, and the quirks their siblings had before Uraraka insisted they all exchange numbers.

“I really hope we all make it into U.A. together,” said Izuku. 

“I don’t see why not! We all got a bunch of points even if they don’t count the bots we took out during the last part of the exam,” Uraraka said. 

“Well, I expect we’ll see within a week or two. I’ll message the both of you when the letter arrives for sure,” Iida assured. 

The three of them said their goodbye and Izuku headed home, texting his new friends. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally ended the chapter where Uraraka and Izuku jumped off of the roof but it was too short. I do like the idea of Uraraka, Iida, and Izuku having a strong friendship even earlier in canon even though I feel like I could've done it way better. I'm still struggling to get Izuku's character right, the timeline is hazy and until I define it things are gonna be a little weird. Despite all the criticisms I'm still proud of how this chapter went and I hope that you guys enjoyed it as well. 
> 
> I don't plan to retread canon in this fanfic, after thinking it over I realized that I didn't want to go over canon again after I've already done it in Exaltation which is why there was no zero pointer and instead something of my own design. Izuku would've taken it down with a Thoron anyways and that seemed kind of boring and unoriginal after doing something similar in Exaltation. 
> 
> Not sure how far from canon I'll tread but things definitely won't be 100% the same with Izuku just having a different quirk.


End file.
